Life with a Newborn

I had forgotten how totally consuming taking care of a newborn is.  Here is a glimpse of our first 3 weeks with Myles.

 Abbie loves to hold her baby brother, she has been the best helper anyone could ask for. 

 Myles and mom have both been doing this a lot!  

chubby checks!

 Our little glow worm!  Unfortunately Myles bilirubin levels just kept climbing after he was born (due to my antibody issues during pregnancy) and peeked at 19.5 at 1 week old.  We had to get a light blanket for him (thankfully it worked and he didn't have to be admitted to the hospital for more intensive light therapy.)  We had to use the blanket for 5 days before his levels were back in a more safe range and he could go without it.  This also meant daily or every other day trips to the hospital for weight checks and blood draws.  I should have taken a picture of his poor little feet after 6 times but I didn't they were so sad.  

Lexie saves me almost every day.  I don't know what I would do without her.  She is the best baby burper ever!  Not to mention all the other things that she does for me.  She is my extra hand every day.  

Ashton is in love with his baby brother.  He even changes diapers with little to no help, pretty good for a 7-year-old boy.  

Baby Boy

Myles Kelly Lars Christiansen

What a BIG name for such a little guy.  Myles decided to make his much anticipated arrival on Monday, November 19, 2012 at 9:28 pm.

He was 8 lbs 5 oz. and 20 inches long.  

We are in love with him already.

I had a pretty uneventful labor.  It just took longer than I had anticipated, but Myles arrived safely and healthy so that is all that matters in the end.  It was the first time that I have delivered somewhere other than St. Marks Hospital and it was different to not know most of the staff, but still I had some really great nurses that took care of me.  We were blessed that my mom was able to come out from Utah and be here for the birth and his first week.  We were able to come home from the hospital the day before Thanksgiving.  

myles

Mini Footprint Boy Birth Announcement

Personalized cards for babies, Valentines, Easter and Mother's Day.

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Baby Bump-38 weeks and Perspective

The baby bump just continues to grow....  I never dreamed I would be able to take this picture, but here I am 38 weeks pregnant.  There are so many things to complain about, how tired I am, how huge I feel,  how bad my back and hips hurt, how I just want this little guy here.  But I realized something earlier this week and it has made all the difference for me right now.  Yes, I am all those things but more than that I am grateful that my body was even able to carry another baby at all.  I am, gasp, 36 years old, and I really never dreamed that we would be adding another baby to our family now.  That looking back this pregnancy has been so uncomplicated.  It had the potential to be stress filled and hard, and while it was at times we have been greatly blessed.  My heart will always hurt for what might have been, but I am so grateful for all that we have.  We have had our moments like having preterm labor scares at 26 and 34 weeks.  Finding out about all the crazy antibodies I have, and how they might affect this baby.  And, I had to endure 20 weeks of hormone shots that were uncomfortable and made me a crazy woman at times, but without those I think we would have had a very different ending to this pregnancy and as much as I want this to be over I will take this ending to one of those....  

Then there is the whole time thing, yes I want to be done and feel like I am overdue, but in reality my due date is still 2 weeks away.  Just because my body has in the past had a hard time making it to the end I figured this time it would be the same way and our baby would come a little early (or a lot)  but he could still come any time and be "early"  If this were my first or even second baby I would not be feeling like this.  Lexie was 10 days early and that was so cool at the time, now I am dying because I might have to wait that long to have our little one this time.  It is all in how you look at it.  Perspective.   And mine has changed.

The Under Bed

A while ago I mentioned that Lexie was part of the production crew on the school play, well two Saturday's ago (I know I'm a little behind) we went to see the final show.  It was a really cute play and Lexie had a lot of friends in the cast so it was fun to get to see them on stage.  Well here is what Lexie has been doing for the play.  This is her artwork on the flyers that they handed out all around town and it was also on the front of some of the programs.

Inside the program there was a little biography of each of the case members and Lexie ended up interviewing over half of them and then typing it all up and getting it ready for the program.  She put in a lot of hours getting the program just right.  She worked really hard.  I am proud of her for taking this HUGE project on and seeing it through to the end (some of her classmates didn't) to make sure that the play was a success on her side of things.  

Baby Bears

We have been getting ready for the baby and one of the things that we did last week was set up the pack and play in our bedroom with the bassinet insert so that it was ready for our little guy when he finally decides to make his appearance.  We had to move some furniture around to make a place for it, so I had to wait for a day when Jake was off so he could help me.  Well Abbie just couldn't stand to let it sit there unoccupied so she made a bed for our bears.

getting them all tucked in

spinning the bears for them to look at

She is going to be such a good helper for me when her little brother comes, once she gets over her world being rocked.  She's been the baby for four years and quite enjoys that role.  It's going to be hard for her to give it up.

Halloween

I know it's a week past halloween but better late than never..... right?  Well here it goes.

The Friday before Halloween our ward had there annual trunk or treat and all the jazz that goes with it. So we spent a hurried afternoon carving our pumpkins so we could take them to the party.  I felt like that was kinda a waste of time, because they didn't get enough pumpkins to actually do the judging in the pumpkin carving contest like they were going to.  We could have done it a different day and not felt so rushed about the whole thing if we had only known.  Oh well I think the kids had fun anyway.  

Daddy helping Abbie cut the face into her pumpkin.

No one likes gutting the pumpkins, its a messy job but one that has to get done if you want to be able to carve the thing. 

Abbie drew the face on her pumpkin all by herself and Jake helped her cut it out.  It was super cute in my opinion.  Because of our rush to get finished Abbie was the only one that I got a finished picture their pumpkin.  Sad they were really cute.

I got out of most of the mess because my stomach is the size of a pumpkin and I wasn't much help.  People at church told me I should have made that my costume for the year, a pumpkin.  I told them I was just lucky to get there. 

Ashton had a hard time deciding what he wanted to be this year for his costume, he didn't want to be anything bloody or gross, and he didn't want to be "just another character from a movie", well he finally decided on an angry bird and I ordered his costume last minute online so for the ward party he wasn't going to wear a costume until at the last minute we decided to make him a mummy with the wrapping from the babies new dresser.  It turned out kinda cute, but fell apart way to fast.  

He was costum-less buy the middle of the party.  Oh well, he had fun while it lasted.

Here are the kids on Halloween getting ready to go out trick or treating.

An angry bird, a bumblebee and a good witch.  They got plenty of candy and didn't freeze too bad.  I got to stay at home and pass out candy to the very few trick or treaters that came to our house.  Kinda wanted to walk the neighborhood to see if I could go into labor, but decided that probably wasn't the best idea since I was just 36 weeks that day.  Abbie came that early and was fine but better to not push my luck right?  

Oh and here is Ashton at his Halloween parade at the school.  They do it outside and thankfully this year it was pretty warm.

And one of Abbie running around while we were waiting for the parade to start.

Apple Orchard

A few weeks ago we took a quick trip to an apple orchard to get some super yummy apples.  We started out late in the evening knowing that it wouldn't give us very much time, but still wanting to try and have a good time.  We didn't have time to do much of anything before they closed, but the kids enjoyed playing around with some of the decorations.  

We had a fun time and the apples were delicious.  We ate lots of them and also made a yummy apple crisp and applesauce with the apples that we got that night.

Baby Bump-36 weeks!

This might just be the last preggo picture I get to take.  I hope so.  I'm ready to have this baby and I am so thankful that I have been able to carry him this far.  I think that he will be here by next weekend but he could still surprise me and take a little longer.  

Random Happenings

We have been a busy bunch this fall.  I was really nervous signing my kids up so many activities because of all of my preterm labor issues, but we have managed to make it through almost everything (our last swimming lesson is tomorrow night)  First up was Ashton's soccer he played through the Y and did a great job.  He went into it not really knowing that much about soccer but really wanting to play.  He has improved by leaps and bounds every week I am so proud of him.

and you gotta love the tongue.  It's his concentration face I guess cause he does the same thing in baseball.  

And how can you not have a good time when you have this cute of a cheering sections.  This was a cooler day for soccer but it was still fun.

All three kids have had swimming lessons again this fall and are doing great.  They are all learning so much and having a good time too.  The only downside (for mom) is that Abbie and Ashton have them first and then Lexie is in the next time slot so we are at the pool for what feels like forever to me.  But Abbie and Ashton love it because they open up one of the pools for open swim when their lessons are over and they get to swim for fun while Lexie has her class.  As an extra bonus Jake has been coming when he gets off work and swimming with the kids.  Sorry no pictures of lessons, they don't allow cameras in the pool area.  

Lexie is involved in two different plays this fall, one with school and one with the Sheldon (a local theatre)  she is having a great time and is now constantly walking around the house singing something.  For the school play she is part of the production crew, and she is part of the children's choir on the community play.  I am proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone a little and doing these plays, she is really enjoying herself.  (No pictures here either)

A few weekends ago Jake and I had a really fun Saturday date, he bought a shooting experience a few months ago and then we had a heck of a time finding a date that we could go and use it.  Well that day finally came and it was so much fun, even if I didn't actually shoot very much.  It was just fun to be together.  I am so glad that Lexie is able and willing to babysit for us so we can take the time to do fun things like this once in a while.  

Here is Jake at one of the stands.  It was a shot gun range so I was in charge of setting off the clay pigeons.  

And how can you not have a good time when it is this pretty where you are.